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BET: COLLEGE HILL |
| An Interview w/Tracey
Edmonds |
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Mostly late
summer and early fall, schools
welcome back eager students
ready to take on the new
semester with sharpened pencil
and college-ruled paper. As
these young adults pile into
class, teachers are
well-equipped with prepared
lessons and a list of
over-priced, written by the
professor, fattening their
pockets with books to purchase,
unless you have moms or pops
footing the bill.
As is Peaches, newcomer to the
spring semester cast of College
Hill. She is the baby mama of
the group. Typical story of
young mother doing’ what she can
to feed her baby. Even though
her baby lives with her parents
and she strips for a living.
Well, only for a month she says. |
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Producer of College Hill and CEO of
Edmonds Entertainment; Tracey Edmonds is
excited about the shows January debut of
the second season for this all black
cast of College Hill. As most spring
semesters are filled with food and
drink, followed by numerous parties
where drunken guys hug perfect strangers
saying “I Love You Man.” BETs College
Hill will fit in quite nicely.
Especially since it’s being taken off
campus this season:
Why take it off
campus and put the kids in the middle of
nowhere?
Tracey Edmonds: Well, one of
the problems that we were dealing with
on campus last year was the fact that
HBCUs have very strict curfews. And the
students are expected to be in their
rooms at a certain time. Lights out at a
certain time. There are issues like
coeds can not sit on a bed together. So,
we had to work on a lot of those issues
when we filmed the first season which
made it very difficult the first time.
We had to edit and censor the show a lot
the first time because if we showed a
boy and a girl sitting on a bed, that
was against university rules, even if
they were just sitting and having a
discussion. Things like that kind of
created issues for us in terms of our
story telling ability the first season.
And not to mention the fact that the
first season the networks agreement with
the university is that they would have
creative control over the show.
Off campus gave
you the ability to be more open?
Tracey Edmonds: Yeah, you
know, this is a very unscripted look at
college life through the perspective of
African American students and we wanted
to be real and honest about what goes on
in college and didn’t want to have to
water down or edit the show. So, it was
much easier this year to shoot a lot of
things off campus so that we didn’t have
to subject ourselves to so much
censorship.
There are more
than enough reality shows. Why the
concept for an African American reality
show?
Tracey Edmonds: Well, I think
when you look at the landscape of what
reality T.V. has to offer, you know it’s
definitely time that someone did an all
African American reality show that shows
different dimensions of black people.
Most of the time with these reality
shows, when you have an African American
cast members; they’re usually cast
because they are African American. We
never really get a chance to learn that
much about that individual. Or see
they’re different types of personalities
or see different types of personalities
on that one particular show that
reflects African American lifestyles.
And so, we decided to do a reality show
that we got to profile 8 different
individuals with very distinctively
different personalities. A chance to see
African Americans with personalities of
all types. And it would be kind of great
to experience black college life on top
of that.
Tons of critics
are saying this show does have a
positive reflection of black students.
Is this really college life?
Tracey Edmonds: I’ve done it
for 2 seasons at 2 different
universities and I think it’s pretty
reflective of what black college life is
like. Sometimes I think even what
college life is like; I think our show
shows the academics of what college life
is like. There is the social, partying
side of college life. There are issues
in terms with getting along and not
getting along with people that you live
with. There are personal issues that you
always deal with when dating. And there
are always individual back stories of
individual struggles that different
students go through and I think there
are a lot of unique struggles that
African Americans go through that
sometimes white students don’t
necessarily go through or experience
like …well I guess it depends on the
individual. One of the things that I
found in going to HBCUs is that a lot of
black students really struggle
financially and pay their way through
college. And a lot of them take jobs on
the side in order to pay their tuition.
Sometimes its jobs that their proud of
and sometimes its jobs that their not
proud of. But they are committed to
getting their education and their
determined that no matter what it takes
their going to end up with a degree. And
their prepared for the struggle. The one
thing that I think is true from my
experience is that the students that we
profiled, a lot of them are very very
intelligent, very articulate and have
very high GPAs and are very honest. They
are unfiltered in the way that they
describe their situations. Their not
guarded and their not afraid to be
honest about their struggles and issues
going on in their lives and I think that
for us we found that they are a lot less
filtered than some of the casts that we
see on some of these reality shows.
Because our students are honest with
issues going on in their lives you have
some who want to criticize the show and
say you really shouldn’t show that this
is going on because it depicts people in
a negative life. But you know what? If
the situation is real and their being
honest about it …I don’t think it’s
wrong to be honest and to show all of
the struggles that we actually go
through. We profile 8 individuals. Some
have positive experiences they are going
through; some have negative experiences
they are going through. And I think the
important thing is to try to keep it
somewhat balanced. I think that this
year we have some edgy characters but at
the same time we have a student on
studying to be a minister (Tanisha).
A special
edition of Spike Lee’s School Daze was
released. After viewing it along with
College Hill and comparing the two
mediums; based on your knowledge of the
film, do you see the same stereotypical,
diversity situations relating to College
Hill in regards to the critics view of
the show?
Tracey Edmonds: To be honest,
it’s been awhile since I’ve seen School
Daze. I think a lot of interracial
discrimination was going on in that
movie with the light skinned vs. the
dark skinned. That part I’ve not
necessarily seen but that’s not to say
that it isn’t out there. Some of the
things that I have seen is the fact
there are a lot of single parent
students that are struggling to get
their degree. You do have some
economically disadvantaged students. And
I think the rest of the issue is that
their were sexual issues or dating
issues [School Daze]. I think that those
are pretty much universal issues that I
think people of any color whether going
to school or not going to school.
Whether their having sex or not having
sex. Whether their having problems with
their boyfriends or girlfriends, whether
their getting along or not getting along
with their roommates. A lot of those
issues are probably universal.
Will College
Hill return for a 3 rd season?
Tracey Edmonds: Well, really
it’s up to the network. We’d like to see
it return for a 3 rd season.
Langston
University, Okalahoma can begin its
welcome to the 8 (Brittani, Nafiys,
Stacey, Coti, Peaches, Israel, Jon and
Tanisha) new college cast members.
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Copyright © 2005 Gesica Magazine |
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